Category Archives: Documenting America

Documenting America, non-fiction, The Candy Store Generation

2011 Writing Year in Review: Non-fiction Books

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Just before our Christmas trip I wrote out a schedule of posts for this blog that would take me through around January 13. Today I find myself two days and one post behind, the consequence of spending time with family over Christmas. I don’t regret the time, nor the need to catch up. But family is still in town, activities are still planned at least through January 2, so I’m not sure when, if ever, I will catch up.

The good news is: It doesn’t matter if I ever catch up. A day late, two days late, a week late, or even not posted at all, doesn’t much matter. Today I’ll at least begin the catch-up and see where it goes.

Reviewing 2011, in the area of non-fiction, book-length works, I had only one: Documenting America. I have other posts on this blog where I explain how and why this volume came into being, so I won’t take up valuable pixels to repeat that here. I will say what prompted me to finish it and publish it in 2011.

Back in January 2011, when I made the decision that I would e-self-publish some of my works (while not completely severing the dream to have something accepted at a traditional publisher) to test the process, I figured my completed short story, “Mom’s Letter”, was the perfect item to start with. I could practice formatting and uploading. I could see what went into having a cover made. I could see what it was like to track the work once it was live on line.

Then I looked at what to do next. I could have gone to my completed novel, Doctor Luke’s Assistant, but that didn’t seem right. I had these 18 or so newspaper columns I had written, only four of which I had published, or that I even tried to have published. I decided they could serve as the basis for a book. Lengthen each of the 18 to what I wanted them to be without the constraints of newspaper column-inches. Add to them until I had 40,000 words, and eSP it. The research, writing, and editing consumed March and April. By early May it was available as a Kindle book, though it took a little longer to attach the real cover.

Having got that far, I took another two months, with many other life issues getting in the way, to format the book for Smashwords and have it added there. CreateSpace took some more months, with the cover modification being one problem.

During all this time, I was thinking of what to do as a follow-up to Documenting America. I began research for a second volume (in fact, I almost called DA Volume 1), and have material in hand to generate at least 10,000 words. I also began writing a different, though sort of related work tentatively titled The Candy Store Generation. This is based on blog posts I made at a friend’s political blog about the Baby Boomers and how they (we) are not improving the United States. I pulled those blog posts together, and added some additional material. I believe it stands at about 5,000 words, needing to get to at least 30,000 words to be a viable book. I also did some research into the make-up of Congress, when the House of Representatives tipped to being dominated by the Baby Boomers. This turned out to be slow going, but I have the research started and well organized.

That’s it for non-fiction books in 2011. The next year-in-review post will be fiction of all types.

Documenting America

Experimenting with Price

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E-self-publishing guru Joe Konrath recently had a guest post on his blog, by Elle Lothlorien, concerning pricing for self-published e-books. Elle recommends higher prices for self-published e-books than has been the conventional wisdom in the community. Joe has recommended $2.99; Elle recommends closer to $4.99. Joe responded by saying he’s starting to agree with that sentiment, and is raising some of his prices accordingly. The comments to the post seem to favor the higher prices.

But at a higher price, won’t they sell fewer books? Maybe. But people, i.e. Americans, also have a perception about price and value being linked. Something that is terribly inexpensive, well below the going value, will be seen to be cheap and thought to be of a lesser quality. Think yard sales and thrift shops. While some good quality bargains can be had, these generally have heavily used merchandise of inferior quality. You’ll find better stuff at consignment shops, but still not of the quality as at stores that sell new stuff.

So I began thinking about the price of Documenting America. I initially set it at $1.25, as an introductory price, thinking if sales took off I could raise it some. It’s not a long book at 196 pages, so I wanted to keep the price attractive. Why then $1.25 and not $0.99? Only because those .99 prices always seem cheesy to me, gimicky. I’d rather pay $1.00 than $0.99. So I set the price at $1.25. But when I listed the book on Smashwords, they only allow prices that end in $0.99. Since Amazon doesn’t allow you to list it for less at any other place, I set the Smashwords price at $1.99. At that price I have one sale, via the Barnes & Noble Nook store.

Several people have told me that the book was way under-priced at $1.25, suggesting something like $3.99 would be better. The print version sells for $10.00, which will net me $0.58 per sale at Amazon, about $2.58 at CreateSpace, and almost $4.00 on self-sales. So I pondered whether I should raise my price, despite lack of sales.

Today I decided to raise the price. Although I don’t like x.99 pricing, if people expect that, I’ll give it to them. So the new price of Documenting America is now $1.99—or it will be as soon as it makes its way through the Kindle approval system.

Now, I’m not naive enough to think that a simple price chage, especially an increase, will suddenly spur sales. But maybe some people looked at the lower price and said, “I’m not buying something that cheap,” or “That guy must be desperate for sales.”  $1.99 doesn’t imply much more value than does $1.25. It is, however, a more expected price in the American market. “Meet expectations” is a good marketing mantra, I think. We’ll see what happens.

Tomorrow I’m going to post my sales graph and let the world see how little I’ve sold and how little I make.

Documenting America

Let the Promotion Continue

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I don’t like it, but I’m doing it. Promotion, that is. Of Documenting America. I describes some of my efforts in my last post, and the difficulty I’m having accepting the unnatural role of promoter.

Today I took another small step. On the way to my writers group I stopped by the Bentonville Public LIbrary and gave them a copy of the book. Thus it is out before the public now—or will be as soon as they log it in, categorize it as to Dewey Decimal numbers, and get it on the shelf. I suppose I’ll go there in about a week and see if I can find it in the catalogue and on the shelf, or better yet, learn it’s been checked out.

One other piece of promotion shows some hope, if not yet sales. I sent a notice to the URI alumni magazine to go in the Class Notes section. One of the staffers e-mailed me, saying that they thought an engineer with literary aspirations was an interesting story, that they’d like to do a feature story on me for the spring issue, and that a certain freelancer will contact me.

Will this actually happen? Will someone ever contact me? Will they actually write the story and print it? And if they do, will it generate any sales? I don’t know those answers, but I do know this: If they print it, it can’t hurt.

Documenting America, Writing

Promoting my Books: Do I have enough ego?

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Now that the print version of Documenting America is available, I’m moving into the promotion phase of being an author. It has been available as an e-book since May 2011, and as a print book since mid-November 2011. My short story, “Mom’s Letter”, has been available as an e-book since February. During that time, on Kindle, Smashwords, and the several other sites to which Smashwords distributes, I’ve sold a total 23 copies of the two.

Sometimes I note a sale the day after I’ve spoken to someone about it. When I went to the state ASCE conference in Little Rock in October, I had dinner with an old friend, told him about it, and the next day had an e-sale. In November I mentioned something about it to someone (the circumstances escape me right now), and the next day I had an e-sale. It seems that, at this point at least, I have to sell each individual copy. I have not succeeded in creating a buzz for either work. 

But, I’ve been doing mainly passive promotion. By that I mean: notices on my Facebook page; posts on this blog; posts at the Ozark Writers League Facebook page; a notice to my alumni magazine; posts at Conservative Arkansas Facebook page; posting notices on a couple of writing forums; adding links to my signature for e-mail and forum posting. All things I can do without interacting with a person. It’s out there, waiting for someone to see it. The Facebook posts on other pages took a little chutzpah, but still I would consider that passive marketing. And, I’ll make sure I have a mention of the book and a link to where to find them in our Christmas letter. After all, it’s big news for the year. 

I believe I can safely assume that passive marketing won’t result in many book sales. If I really want to create a buzz for either of these works (though I’m clearly more interested in promoting the book than the short story) I’m going to have to move into active marketing. That will require me to contact real human beings, either in real life or on-line, and either ask them to buy a copy of my book or to help me promote it through an interview or a speaking engagement. I have three or four ideas on how to accomplish this active marketing. One is to research blogs that might want to promote the book. This would be political blogs (more conservative than liberal) and USA history blogs. Another is to contact local civic clubs—Kiwanis, Lions, Civitians, Rotarians, etc—and see if I could speak at them. That requires research, however, to find out who does the speaker scheduling and contact them. 

Today I did some of the research needed for active promotion. I did a search for history blogs and American history blogs. This provided a lot of links, many of which were to abandoned sites or blogs that really wouldn’t apply. In 20 minutes of searching I found one US history blog where the owner encouraged publishers to submit books for review on the blog. I don’t know how he feels about author published books, but I went ahead and e-mailed him, and am now waiting. I suppose next week I’ll begin the process of the civic clubs. 

All this is not comfortable to me. I was raised to not toot my own horn, to let others praise when justified. Now, I have to go out and shout, “Hey! My book is worth reading, worth $10.00 in dead-tree format and $1.25 in pixel format. Buy it, buy it, buy it. How well I do this, and for how long, will likely turn out to be the biggest test of my writing career. 

Stay tuned.

Church History Novels, Doctor Luke's Assistant, Documenting America, Short Stories, Writing

Stewardship of Writing Time

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Thanksgiving week was not expected to be a time to get much writing done, and I didn’t for the first part. Our daughter and son-in-law came in with the two grandsons (3 and 1) on Sunday evening, then left the kids with us as they went on to Eureka Springs for a couple of days at a resort, courtesy of their church for pastor appreciation. Watching these two little boys didn’t lend itself to writing.

And actually, for the week before they came I didn’t write much, as the house needed a good release from clutter and dust and accumulation of months of having no visitors.

But the kids left Friday after Thanksgiving, my mother-in-law left on Saturday, so the house turned quiet real fast. With leftovers galore, even food preparation time was greatly reduced. So I did find some things to write, and ways to futher my writing “business”. Here’s my status right now.

  1. Last night I finished reading Doctor Luke’s Assistant, and have marked 60 or so typos and that many other places to make a few improvements. My goal is to e-self-publish this as soon as I can get the edits done, format it for e-books, and have a cover made. I suspect it will be ready in January some time.
  2. The print books of Documenting America arrived! Yesterday I found them at the office. They probably came in on Monday, but I never went to the mail area. I took some to Centerton yesterday when I went there and sold two. Sold one at the office also. I only ordered 20 copies to start with.
  3. I began writing my next short story, “Too Old To Play”. This is the next one in the Danny Tompkins short story series. The first one, “Mom’s Letter,” is available as an e-book. I hope to get this one available as an e-book as well. Again, having a cover made will be the hold-up.
  4. I’m reading a book titled Creating Unforgettable Characters, part of my continuing study of the writing craft. This is a little older, from the 1990s. It makes frequent references to characters in TV shows I never watched, such as Murphy Brown, and movies I never saw such as The Rain Man. But it’s pretty good. I’m gaining some new insights into fictional character development, even if I don’t fully understand the illustrations given.
  5. This morning (I’m home sick, the last stages of recovering from a stomach bug that hit me yesterday morning) I set up my writing business accounting spreadsheet. I entered the print book sales, entered the Suite101 income, and set up the expense tab of the spreadsheet. Maybe I’ll be ready to prepare my Schedule C when tax time comes.
  6. I wrote an article for Buildipedia.com and submitted it on the deadline, Nov 28. This is the first of a Q&A column on construction administration. It’s experimental for the on-line magazine. I have contracts for two columns, and I guess they’ll decide on more and the frequency when they see how these first ones are received. Let’s hope it works. I’ll be paid about 40 cents per word, which isn’t chicken feed.
  7. I completed an article for Decoded Science, another on-line source of potential writing income. I have not yet uploaded the article, as I have to first write short and long writer bios and upload a photo. Maybe I can do that today, and upload the article tomorrow.
  8. Attended a meeting of BNC Writers. We were a small group, but did some good critiquing and planning. We may have one more meeting on Dec 5, then wait till 2012 to resume.

That’s about it. I have much to do with writing over the next two weeks. Our Christmas letter, edits on In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, the second Buildipedia column, finishing the new short story, planning for marketing Documenting America. Enough to keep me busy.

Documenting America

A Whole New World

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As I mentioned in the last couple of posts, last weekend I finished proof-reading the proof copy of Documenting America, and began the process of making the minor changes and uploading it to Kindle, Smashwords, and CreateSpace. For each of these, a review by the distributor organization was required before it would be listed. Those reviews have been completed, and all three distributors have it for sale. Through Smashwords, this includes Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and some others.

I also have for sale paper copies I order from CreateSpace. I haven’t ordered any yet. I was planning on deciding this week how many the initial order should be. I have one sold already, to a man who used to work at CEI, with whom I’m Facebook friends. He saw my notice and said he would buy a copy. That tells me maybe I can sell some. That also tells me I’d better find out what I need to do about sales tax.

But the bigger thing to figure out is: Now what?

I’ve been holding off marketing Documenting America, either as an e-book or paper book, because I was waiting on the paper book, and on correcting a couple of typos I knew of. All that’s done, and it’s time to get marketing. An occasional shameless self-promotion on Facebook is probably okay, not more often than once a month. But I need to do more. Here’s some of the things I’m thinking about doing.

  • dropping copies off at local coffee houses, designating them as copies to stay in the coffee house.
  • seeing if I could give a few to the nearby Barnes & Noble. Let them make the sale and keep the entire proceeds. Then, if those sold, maybe they would order a bunch from CreateSpace. Or course, if they agree to take them, I might steer a few buyers their way.
  • see if I could speak at some local civic groups: Kiwanis, Lions, Civitians, Rotary. Those that meet weekly are always looking for speakers. I have in mind a presentation I would make of the material, which could tie in nicely with the book, but not just be about the book.
  • research blogs and see if I can organize a blog tour for the book. Blogs about history or politics are where I’d go to. This is a key way for many authors to promote their books. Having never done it, I suspect just the research of what blogs to target and how to contact the owners and scheduling and follow-up, etc.
  • drop off paper copies at two or three local libraries.
  • then, after a couple of months, maybe see about some radio programs.

I’ve been thinking about the marketing aspects of this for a long time, and have blogged on it before. None of this is new. What is new is the feeling I have. It’s a whole new world now. My book is out, fully out. The time to plan my marketing is over. Time simply to do.

Documenting America, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Writing

Writing and Publishing and Promoting

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My two e-self-published works, Documenting America and “Mom’s Letter” languish, rated lower than 366,000th and 464,000th among Kindle e-books. One sale of each will bring them up to rank around 40,000. That tells me some 320,000 or so books have sold one copy since I last sold one.

I’ve posted both to Facebook, I think two times. I have a few new friends since I last posted, but probably not enough new to justify another post. I don’t want to become a spammer.

I haven’t wanted to do much on promotion of either one until I had the paper book of Documenting America in hand and ready to sell. While e-books will remain popular and even grow in popularity, the potential is still there to sell more paper books. The places I would like to promote them will present the chance for both e-book and paper book sales.

So I’m holding off on promotion until I can get the paper book done. I’m stymied on the paper book, waiting on a necessary item that I’m getting for no charge. Of course, so far I’ve received what I paid for. Eventually I’ll pay to get the thing done.

So, while I can’t publish and therefore can’t promote, I’m writing. Last week I added over 9,000 words to In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. The world is exhibiting very little impatience for this book, but I keep plugging away. Today marks two months since I submitted it at its 21,000 word point to an agent. I think that means I have another month to go before “no reply is a no” kicks in, though I’d better double-check on that. I’m still working toward a first half of October completion for it. After that comes at least one round of edits before I work on something else.

Documenting America, The Candy Store Generation, Writing

Time: The same old, same old dilemma

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I have only so many hours:minutes a day to devote to writing. Some days are more than others. At the same time, I have only so much mental stamina:physical stamina to apply to those hours:minutes. Sometimes the two don’t align. This weekend they didn’t fully align. After yard work Saturday morning, the first I’ve been able to do since the ehrlichiosis flare-up happened, I felt good. My knees hurt a little, but not too much. I ate, rested, did a few chores inside, then went to The Dungeon to write. Alas, physical tiredness overwhelmed the gray cells, and I got less writing done than I’d hoped. This continued into Sunday.

For the weekend, I think I added somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 words to “In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People”, bringing the word count to around 52,400. It was good to get past the milestone 50,000, but there’s still a long way to go. At 5,000 words a week, I won’t finish until around October 15. That’s just the first draft. I’ll then have rework and rework and rework to make it truly ready for submittal. Of course, by that time I hope to hear from the agent who has the partial.

Unfortunately, to achieve that much production given the disruption in the hours:minutes/mental:physical continuum, I had to neglect other writing chores. I neglected this blog and An Arrow Through the Air. I had to neglect freelance article writing. I’ve quit proposing articles to Buildipedia.com, even though that pays fairly well. I’ve quit writing for content sites, even though that pays a little. The content sites are not a big deal. I miss the money from Buildipedia. I also miss regularly posting to the blogs.

I’ve also neglected any follow-up work to Documenting America. I started on what might be the first follow-up work, The Candy Store Generation, as well as on a second volume of Documenting America. I’ve also pretty much given up on promoting the volume I’ve e-self-published. Sales have stalled in August after a promising up-tick in July.

Then there’s all the household things that aren’t getting done because they won’t get done if I don’t do them. Such as the over that only half works. Such as the microwave that no longer gives us full power. Such as the place way up at the top of the chimney, 30 feet off the ground, where the siding has torn away. Such as the skylight that’s leaking. Such as the painting that will be needed once the skylight is fixed. Such as my various piles of papers that aren’t as neat or hidden as they need to be. Such as the pile of bills and receives that need to be filed. Such as twenty other things I’m forgetting.

Time. There ain’t enough of it. To whom much is given, much is required. Unfortunately, I may be pretty much out of much.

Documenting America, Writing

Citizen and Patriot

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Once again I am considering changing my writing course. Not changing it, exactly, but trying once again to focus it.

I came back from the Write-To-Publish Conference with too many irons in the fire. I worked on them as best I could, but have not been able to spend the brain power on them to make them into real prospects. I need to lay a couple of these works-in-progress aside.

Then today was a blog parade hosted by WordServe Literary Agency, with many of their clients posting on their platform building efforts. Out of twenty or more blog posts to that many different blogs, only a few dealt exclusively with the writer’s platform, the rest dealing with marketing of books in general. The thoughts I gleaned from the weight of these posts, and from another writer’s blog recommended to me today, were these:

  1. A network of family and friends who will champion your work is the first essential.
  2. Concentrate on one genre, to maximize marketing efforts as well as for other reasons.
  3. Social networking has become quite effective for book marketing.
  4. Blog to meet readers needs, not for other writers.
  5. Have a blog that targets the audience of your book.

These all seem like truisms to me. Well, except maybe social media. I have limited experience with it, and haven’t been able to satisfy in my own mind that is true. Certainly my initial experience with it says it is not true, but that maybe I have to work at it both harder and smarter.

So I think immediately I’ll exclusively devote my actual writing time to two works, In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, and the Documenting America brand, which would include The Candy Store Generation as the next installment. To build up a network, I’ve begun casting around for groups to join and participate in. I joined Conservative Arkansas today because, while I tried to take a tone in Documenting America that is not truly conservative, I think conservatives are the most likely audience. I’ve already made one post there and had a couple of people like it.

My blogs certainly have not given me an army of fans who will champion my writing. In fact, with a couple of notable exceptions, my family and friends have proven utterly disinterested in anything I write. Writing acquaintances have shown more interest. So I guess my efforts will have to be targeted to find a new army of friends.

Concerning having a blog targeted toward my work in progress, what I’ve thought of is to open a new blog page under this David A. Todd writer’s blog aimed at the potential audience of Documenting America. I would make posts in support of that work, possibly an excerpt from the book, possibly research toward a second volume, possibly editorials. Anything that would draw in and inform people who might want to buy Documenting America.

Doing this would mean making 3 posts a week in the new blog, which I’m thinking of calling “Citizen and Patriot”, after the passage in the James Otis speech around which chapters 1 and 2 of DA are built. But it would also mean having to cut back on my other two blogs. And finding time to write freelance articles would be impossible, so that would be gone for a while.

So my question to you, loyal readers, is this: Does this sound like a good idea to you? Should I write a blog targeted to US history, focused on original documents, not analysis? I’m anxious to know what you think.

Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Documenting America, self-publishing, Writing

Summary of e-book sales and royalties

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Don’t be fooled by the title of this post. Nothing much has changed. Other than it’s July 25, and I’m already standing at my best month yet for both sales and royalties.

That doesn’t mean much of course, since I haven’t sold much at all. But so far this month I’ve sold 2 copies of “Mom’s Letter” and 3 copies of Documenting America. These sales have accrued $2.01 to my accounts at Kindle and Smashwords.

See, I told you these were not earth-shattering numbers. But the fact it’s still my best month so far. Previously my best month was 4 units sold and $1.68 in royalties accrued. So it is indeed a better month.

This is what the e-self-publishing experts say: More books on more e-reading platforms will result in more sales. That’s turning out to be true. In July I added “Mom’s Letter” to Smashwords. I’ve wanted to add Documenting America to it as well, but that’s a little more involved as I have to create an electronic Table of Contents. That’s not difficult; it just takes time. Maybe I’ll get a little time to work on it tonight.

That brings my total sales to 8 of “Mom’s Letter” and 7 of Documenting America. My accrued revenue stands at $6.28. That’s over five months for the former and less than three for the latter. I would love to have more, and I’d hoped the increase would come quicker than this, but I’ll take these for now, considering how little time I’ve put into promotion.

But, today I had a big surprise. I have three sales reports I can check: sales in the USA Kindle store, sales in the UK Kindle store, and sales in the German Kindle store. Normally I only check the USA one, but today I checked the UK, and discovered I have one sale of “Mom’s Letter” there in July! Surprise surprise. I earned 0.22 Pounds Sterling for that sale, which will work out to $0.35. I’m not quite sure how that gets accumulated and paid out, but it’s there in the record as a sale. I’ll take it.

So, I’m on a roll, albeit a very small and slow roll. I really need to get Documenting America up on Smashwords, and find something else to publish. Doctor Luke’s Assistant is more or less ready to go. I could probably have that on Kindle in a week and on Smashwords in two. I also still have to do the work needed to get Documenting America on CreateSpace, so that I have a physical book for sale. I don’t want to do a lot of promotion before having the physical book for those who don’t want an e-book. Then I’d better get busy finishing In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People so that I can slide over to another volume of Documenting America. Or maybe get serious with The Candy Store Generation.

That’s a plate full. Oh, well, better to have ambitious goals than to sit and watch TV all night.